


Lose Your Way

by RunawayBean



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Birds, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst, Bird/Human Hybrids, Crows, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hunter Castiel, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Original Character(s), daisuga - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 20:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayBean/pseuds/RunawayBean
Summary: Daichi’s life up until now had been relatively consistent. He lived his life sleeping, eating, breathing, hunting and, well, living. But sometimes he didn’t call it living. Sometimes he called it surviving. Surviving is different. Surviving isn’t fulfilling or happy or purposeful. Surviving is doing what you need to do to survive and then pushing everything else away. And that is exactly what Daichi was doing.That is, until he suddenly has a secret thrust upon him, dozens if not hundreds of lives are at stake, someone suddenly believes in him way too much and he is struggling to stay afloat.People in his village are starting to worry.Maybe he needs to get better at hiding.





	Lose Your Way

**Author's Note:**

> Winged!AU mainly centered around Daisuga because I have ZERO self-control.
> 
> Enjoy~
> 
> Edit: I noticed that the chapters were too short so I put the original chapters one and two together in one. Sorry for the confusion!

Daichi remembered his father. 

 

Of course he did. His father had only died three, almost four, years ago. The memories were all still fresh and cut like knives but were still somehow also sweet. They cut in the ways that nostalgia does: with harsh slashes of ‘how I wish that was how it was now’ and ‘will I ever feel like that again?’ Most of the time the answer to the second question was no. One couldn’t exactly bring someone back from the dead. 

 

But he still longed for the days that his father had been alive. Yes, he was an adult now and yes, he had lived on his own for at least a year before his father died but still. A person was always still a child somewhere deep down inside them that longed for the simplicity of a parents embrace. The exception to this was when the parents were awful and neglected their children. But the children still had urges and desires to be embraced by a parental figure and thus befriended someone else’s parents. It’s human nature, the desire to be held, and Daichi had never seen it as anything but a good thing. Many people thought it wasn’t manly and showed weakness but Daichi had always thought that showing emotion and the desire to be held, and maybe even showing a bit of weakness, was extremely good. Sometimes it was even the bravest thing anyone could do. 

 

His happiest memories were with his father. His father had taught him to hunt and to fish. He had taught him how to cook, clean, take care of himself and take care of others. His father had taught him how to swim, how to ride a horse and how to care for animals. But, most importantly, his father had taught Daichi the most important lesson: never be afraid of yourself. 

 

This phrase could mean many things. 

 

It could mean ‘be yourself’ or it could mean ‘don’t mind what others think’ or it could even mean ‘do what you want and fight anyone that tries to stop you.’

 

Daichi had always taken it to mean ‘never be afraid of what goes on in your head’ which, in his opinion, was very important. 

 

He was snapped abruptly out of his daydream when a rabbit leaped across where his legs were outstretched and darted off into the bushes. He jumped so hard that he dropped his bow and knocked his quiver over, spilling arrows across the grass. With a sigh he brought his legs in and crossed them before picking up his bow and slinging it over his shoulder. Then he grabbed his quiver and started picking up the arrows and slotting them back into the quiver safely. 

 

If he had been paying attention, that rabbit would be dead with an arrow in its neck and he would have had the perfect dinner, as well as some fur to trade for arrows and maybe some bones to play around with when he was bored or if he was feeling particularly energetic after a long hunting day. But he hadn’t been and now he was cursing missed opportunities as he stood up and hopped onto the huge log he had been leaning his back against. He walked along it, arms outstretched and footing practiced, mind slowly clearing itself of the haze from daydreaming. Daichi knew he shouldn’t daydream while on the hunt, especially when he was this far into the forest. It was much denser here, clearings were few and far between and having a clear shot at prey was even less common. Not that he always needed a clear shot, people in the village said he had been blessed by the gods because he was so skilled with a bow and arrow. Whenever he went for target practice, he often got a small crowd of people watching and oohing and aahing. Girls always made giggly sounds whenever he trained because they knew that in the middle of it he would pull off his shirt because it always got hot. Then they would squeal. He always ignored them. 

 

Daichi wasn’t just strong with the bow. It was his main weapon but it wasn’t the only thing he was good with. He was good with knives, daggers and throwing knives alike, swords, broad or long or single edged you name it, staffs and basically anything you put in his hands. He rarely used conventional methods because whenever he was handed a weapon he just tried to find the most useful way to use it. If he sparred with anyone he often had a good chance to surprise them and win. 

 

His boots landed in the soft, plush grass with a quiet thump and he straightened to look around. The forest smelled amazing this far away from the village. The air was clean and perfect, no smoke from fires or cigars anywhere near here. 

 

He was almost about to slip back into dreamworld again when he heard something, right at the edge of his hearing and rapidly getting closer. 

 

It sounded like furious beating of massive wings but the beats seemed off and there may have been multiple pairs of wings. There were shouts of alarm and pain along with cries of surprise and victory. Tree branches cracked, sending Daichi sprinting in the direction of the voices. He was panting with effort for a solid minute, all the while the rational part of his brain was asking where exactly he thought he was going. He skidded to a stop and looked upward. The noise he made next could only be classified as small, fearful, childish and weak. He refused to think on it any more than he must.

 

Two bodies were scuffling, fists and legs flying at each other. Blood sprayed in soft puffs every time the left body got hit in the face and the right made an enraged sound of pain every time the left one landed a punch to their ribs. Tree branches were being shoved out of the way by the massive wings trying to keep their owners up in the sky. 

 

Daichi was tempted, oh so tempted, to call up and tell them to stop and ask why they were fighting. But he reasoned with himself for a moment and decided that that probably wasn’t a good idea. 

 

So he watched, unable to do anything. 

 

It was incredible, if you got past the awful parts which was most of it, to watch these two bodies fight. They went every which way, not seeming to care which way was up or down and which of them was on top or which of them were going left or right, acting as if gravity simply did not apply to the two of them. All that seemed to matter to these two creatures was getting the other off of them. But also keeping the other close enough to hit. It was confusing to say the least. One would shove and the other would be shoved and then they would get yanked back in again. The two were a flurry of wings and blood and shouts and limbs and oh no that crack had not sounded good. 

 

One of the creatures shrieked in pain. The other seemed to grow more energetic and hit them there again. The creature shrieked again, starting to fall weak. They were hit again and again, more power everytime and the hits kept coming faster and faster as the other creature seemed to be eating up whatever energy the broken one was losing. 

 

With one last feral screech, the beaten creatures wings stilled and they fell limp in the others grip. The winner, who’s wings looked like a bats, laughed victoriously, wings pumping all the harder to stay aloft with the new weight of the limp creature. 

 

Then they let go and flew away. 

 

Daichi sprinted toward the falling creature, he needed to catch it or it would hit the ground and get hurt more. He stretched out his arms and-

 

The creature slammed into the ground and Daichi heard the unmistakable crunch of bone. He shuddered violently and nearly retched, remembering how it felt when he had broken his ankle so many years ago, and ran harder toward the creature. 

 

As he got closer, he saw that the creature was male. He was pretty, to say the least. His hair was fluffy and messy on his head, his skin was milky white and fair and he had a large freckle sitting just below his right eye. His face and hair and neck and hands were splattered with drops of brilliant red blood and Daichi was sure that some of it wasn’t his. His body was lithe and had lean strong muscle clearly showing through the extremely ripped clothing. His wings were massive, shaped like a crows and they were the colour of shiny polished silver metal.

 

Daichi slid on his knees up to the creature and gasped. 

 

The wings. 

 

He had landed on his wings. 

 

Oh this was bad. 

 

Daichi had known for a long time that a birds wing bones were extremely delicate and lightweight and therefore the easiest type of bone in the world to break. They were also hard to heal. And this man- bird? man? birdman?- had landed with all his weight from quite high up directly onto them. They had cushioned his fall, hopefully saving his internal organs and ribs and spine but Daichi couldn’t be sure. 

 

“Oh no.” His voice was barely a whisper. 

 

As swiftly and quietly as he could, he pulled off his cloak and lay it flat on the ground. Then he crept up to the creature and knelt at his side. 

 

The creatures eyes were open now and they were staring up at him. Their dull brown depths were filled with horror and fear and every bad thing as they stared up at him. Daichi knew that this young creature wanted nothing more in this moment than to run as fast and as far away as he could. 

 

“Don’t move.” Daichi whispered, his voice holding practiced comfort and ease “I’m going to help you, but you can’t move.”

 

He started to lean closer to sweep his arms under the creature. 

 

The creature flinched, almost jostling his wings. 

 

Daichi froze and whispered “I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to help you.”

 

The creature stared at him, warily for a long, long moment. Daichi thought for a horrible, agonizing moment that the bird creature couldn’t understand him. The bird creatures eyes started to look more and more distant, their beautiful dull brown colour looking glossier by the moment. 

 

Then, with a twitch and a shudder, the creature’s eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted. 

 

Daichi cursed and hurried to get the creature up and off his wings. Then he quickly lay the creature on his side so he could access his wings. Without so much as a second thought, Daichi reached over and grabbed his cloak and brought one edge to his mouth. He clamped his teeth at an appropriate length and tore a long strip from the cloak. Then he repeated the process a few more times, creating lengths of fabric that could serve as bandages until Daichi got home and replaced them with actual bandages. He fumbled around and grabbed random sticks from the ground that were littered around him. Then he racked his brain for any knowledge on how to set bird bones. 

 

After a whole minute of searching through his memory, he found an image of his father setting a birds wing. Daichi began to replicate how his father had done it. He reached up and found the main joint of the wing, the elbow, and traced each bone down to the edges of the feathers. With a gulp of relief, he found that the bones were mostly clean breaks, no shatters as far as he could tell. This was good, better than what he had expected. So he set to work. He lay sticks and, eventually, some of his broken arrows along where each bone was, carefully pushing them back into place, watching the creature’s face for any signs of waking. He assumed the creature had fainted from pain and all this probably wasn’t helping him wake up but Daichi knew that if he did wake up, his first instinct would be to wriggle away and that would only make it worse. 

 

So Daichi worked faster. He ripped his cloak fully to shreds in the process of making enough bandages to hold all the splints in place. He felt around three times when he had finished setting the bones to make sure they were all back to where they needed to go. Then, finally, he sat back and rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand. 

 

The grey feathers that had once decorated the creatures wings were now completely covered in the dark wine red of Daichi’s cloak and the slightly brighter red of blood. The wings sat slightly crooked and were bound so tightly that the splints had no way of moving accidentally, or so Daichi hoped. The creature had gone pale, paler than before, and he had sweat glistening in a sheen across his forehead. Daichi gently ran the last scrap of his cloak over the creatures forehead and collected the sweat, wiping his forehead clean. 

 

Daichi soon realized that he wouldn’t be able to carry the creature back to his cabin without either help or a stretcher. And he was too far away from the village to ask for help. So he went about and started to scavenge for materials to make a stretcher. Leaves were plentiful in this area of the forest and he knew he should be able to find some longer leaves. He did and he hefted as many of them as he could into his arms. Then he searched for long, straight branches to weave the leaves between. These were a little more difficult to find and involved some improvised tree scaling but he managed. Finally, he yanked down some of the slightly flexible branches and dragged them over to his workspace. 

 

He got to work building a stretcher for the creature’s wings and tried his best to keep one eye on the creature and the other on his work. His hands moved like a blur as he tied knot after knot and wove the huge leaves in and out and around. He was better at his than he thought but his worry filled brain couldn’t decide if he was actually good or he was just being fuelled with adrenaline. 

 

Finally, finally, he was finished and he started gently maneuvering the stretcher underneath the creature’s wings. He tried his absolute best not to jostle or move any of the splints and finally got the stretcher all the way on. Then he attached the flexible branches to the farthest corners and slung them over his shoulders. Then he carefully lifted the creature into his arms. With the creature safely secured and the stretcher relatively stable and unlikely to move while he walked, he started to head back to his cabin. He walked as quickly as he could without shifting the stretcher. 

 

He was relatively certain the creature was still unconscious on their way back but he could swear he felt a pair of eyes staring up at him in utter disbelief.

———

One of the good things about being a hunter was that Daichi could live alone in a cabin near the edge of the forest and no one questioned it. Not that anyone would have said anything out loud anyway, they would keep it to themselves. Another good thing was that he could smuggle utterly broken bird human creatures with pretty eyes into his house and no one would see him. 

 

That hadn’t been his original intent when he had built his cabin but whatever. 

 

Life happens. 

 

Daichi burst through his door and pushed it closed with his foot, awkwardly maneuvering his foot up and flicking the lock closed. Then he hurried over to his bed and lay the bird creature on it as softly as he could. He unhooked the tree loops from around his neck and slowly slid the stretcher out from under the creature’s wings. Then he started pulling it apart and began to make a fire in the fireplace. The leaves were dry and excellent fire starters and pretty soon he had a fairly good blaze going. Then he went to a cabinet by his bed and pulled out bandages and cloths and an ointment. 

 

He knelt at the bird creature’s side and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. It was hot. With a small sound of alarm, Daichi leaned forward and tentatively pressed his lips to the creature’s forehead to check for fever. The poor thing was burning up. 

 

He cursed under his breath. Then he dashed to wet a cloth with cold water and carefully draped it over the creature’s forehead. He looked down then, at his face, and noticed that his eyebrows were scrunched together, eyes still closed, as if he were having a nightmare. Daichi saw the creatures hands twitch and felt a pang of sympathy for the creature, deep in his chest, before he went back to work on unwrapping his wings. 

 

None of the splints had moved enough to be noticeable, thank the gods, but that didn’t mean that the bones weren’t out of place again. The splints could have shifted slightly and pushed the bones even the tiniest bit out of place, which would make healing properly extremely difficult and even more complicated than it already would be. Daichi went about feeling the bones and studying them and gently prodding them back into what he hoped was the correct place. The creature twitched once, twice, three times and, every time, Daichi would freeze and wait for the creature to settle before continuing his work. He hardly breathed at all when the creature moved, sitting motionless until long after he had fallen back to, hopefully more peaceful, slumber. He kept praying, begging that the broken creature wouldn’t wake up until he was finished or else this would be too painful for him to stand for too long. 

 

Daichi shook his head to clear the thoughts of the creature crying and screaming in pain and set about gently massaging the ointment into the skin between the creature’s feathers. It was a soft thick paste that Daichi really had to work and warm with his hands before it was ready to be spread on skin and injuries. But it was well worth it because this particular cream worked exceedingly well on all the minor hunting injuries Daichi managed to get. He felt bad about ruffling the bird creature’s feathers and making some fall out of place and he tried his best to gently comb them back to where he thought they had been but it was utterly unsuccessful. He planned to apologize for the ruffled messy feathers directly to the creature when he woke up. Then Daichi moved on to massaging the ointment into the many bruises all over the creatures arms and legs. Most of the bruise sites were exposed thanks to the creatures ripped clothing which Daichi also felt bad about. He should get the creature some new clothes. 

 

Finally, Daichi steeled his nerves and psyched himself up and lifted the creatures shirt to examine his ribs and back.

 

The sides of the creatures ribs were extremely bruised and Daichi massaged more of the ointment into them, wincing when he saw how yellow and purple they all were. He also rubbed some of the ointment along the skin between the creatures silver wings. Daichi noticed that there were feathers spanning the small distance of skin between the wings and, once again, tried his best to not mess up the feathers too much. But his pleas went unanswered and his attempts all failed and these feathers were all just as messy and out of place as the ones on his wings. Daichi let out a long suffering sigh after that and sat back in his chair, wiping his hands on a towel and examining the creature.

 

His hair was a mess, that was the first thing that stuck out to Daichi, the fact that his hair was all over the place, much like the feathers that Daichi had messed up. So, Daichi reached forward and swept his hand through the young creatures hair. His hair was absolutely dishevelled, not in a handsome way or intentional way either, and Daichi kept stroking his fingers through it in an attempt to restore it to… something better.

 

After a minute or two, the creatures hair looked less like he’d been in a tornado and slightly more like it had been intentionally tousled. His hair was also incredibly soft, like the fur of some breeds of dogs. It had a feathery appearance to it, arranging itself into little sections that each went a slightly different way than all the others. 

 

He was quite pretty. 

 

Daichi stood and went to the small kitchen area of his cabin and put a large pot over the stove. He filled it with water and turned on the heat. He had no idea what bird creatures ate but he’d be damned if he didn’t try. 

 

He put some vegetables into the pot once it boiled and was about to add some meat but froze. Did bird creatures eat meat?

 

He put the meat back in the storage. Better safe than sorry. 

 

He hummed quietly to himself as he waited for the broth to be ready. His father had taught him how to make stock and the skill had stuck with him all this time. He had learned when he was… five? Or maybe six. So approximately fifteen or sixteen years. 

 

The song he was humming was the only thing he remembered about his mother. She had died when he was three and had always sung him a quiet lullaby before he slept. How he still remembered it was beyond him, just like how he remembered how to make the stock. At this point it may as well have been instinct or be a part of his DNA. Who knew? Maybe it was. 

 

A quiet, breathless noise of fear and pain sounded from behind him and he turned to find that the bird creature was awake. His eyes were wide in fear and confusion, pain glittering brightly in their depths. His skin was pale, paler than before and his eyebrows were scrunched together as he scanned the one room cabin. He caught sight of Daichi and he moved to scramble backwards but yipped in pain as soon as he moved an inch. He sank back onto the bed on his stomach, chin propped up to stare at Daichi, examining him. His hands were in a position that meant he was ready to jump to run away as soon as Daichi did anything that even looked remotely threatening. 

 

“Hey.” Daichi’s voice was calm and reassuring as he raised his hands up to where the bird creature could see them “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now.”

 

The bird stared at him incredulously, eyes wide, almost as if he didn’t understand. Then, he whispered “Safe? Hurt me?”

 

So he could speak the common language. 

 

The bird creatures voice was soft and warm and seemed full. Not full of anything, just full, like how he filled in every word he said with sound and weight. 

 

Daichi nodded, an easy soft smile finding its way onto his lips “Safe. I splinted your wings. They were broken pretty badly.”

 

The bird creatures eyes widened and he moved his head in an attempt to see his wings. The attempt was unsuccessful so he went back to staring at Daichi. 

 

“I’ve got some soup on the way for you.” Daichi continued, wondering if simply hearing someone’s voice could calm the bird creature down like it did for him “I wasn’t sure what you ate so it’s just a vegetable broth. Do you eat soup?”

 

The bird creature stared, completely still, save for a slight tremble in his shoulders. Then he nodded, a tiny incline of his head followed by a tiny decline before he rested his chin back on the sheets. 

 

“Great. It should be ready in a minute or two.” Daichi lowered his hands to his sides slowly, so the bird creature could see what he was doing “My name is Sawamura Daichi. I haven’t introduced myself yet.”

 

The bird creature nodded again, taking in the information. Then he whispered, testing the name on his tongue “Daichi.”

 

“That’s me.” Daichi smiled and nodded in approval “What’s your name?”

 

The bird creature froze and stared at him. 

 

Daichi caught the meaning “You don’t have to tell me. I figure talking must hurt. Your ribs were pretty banged up too. Nothing broken though.”

 

He turned and ladled some of the steaming broth into a mug and brought it over toward the bird creature at the bed. He stopped several paces before the bed, careful to not make the bird creature too anxious or feel too crowded. He sat himself on the ground and crossed his legs before slowly holding the mug out to the creature curled up on his bed. 

 

The bird creature stared at it. He seemed to be inspecting it. 

 

“Please.” The bird creatures voice was quieter this time, tired almost “Please.”

 

“You want me to help you drink?” Daichi offered, filling in the possible ending to the sentence. 

 

The bird creature nodded tinily again, a flash of gratitude sparkling in his eyes for just a moment. 

 

Daichi slowly picked himself up onto his knees and leaned forward. He brought the mug to the bird creatures lips, brought his other hand to the bird creatures chin and gently lifted. He timidly raised the mug up. The bird creature drew some of the soup into his mouth, closing his eyes as he made a small sighing sound. Then he took another sip, and then another and another and another, eyes still closed. He swallowed the soup desperately. 

 

“Okay okay.” Daichi’s voice was barely a whisper as he gently pulled the mug away from the bird creatures lips “You seem like you haven’t eaten anything in a while.”

 

“Three days.” The bird creature’s voice was even quieter and more tired than before. 

 

Daichi nodded “So take it slow. You can have more after you sleep.”

 

The bird creature nodded and watched like a hawk as Daichi rose to his feet and brought the mug back toward the kitchen area. Daichi washed it and put it on the counter, next to the stove where the soup would sit until the bird creature awoke. Then he turned back and smiled gently at the bird, who was still watching him intently, as if he were some kind of performance. The bird creatures eyes were following each movement that he made, from the long strides of his walk to the small nimble finger movements to rotate the mug around on the counter. Daichi watched as the bird creatures eyes started to droop. He smiled lightly at him and softly reassured him that he was safe. 

 

Then the beautiful bird creature was asleep. 

 

Daichi sat and stared for a moment. All the stress and fear had eased out of the creatures face and Daichi truly got a moment to see how beautiful he was. Yes, Daichi assumed that all the bird creatures like this one were beautiful, but he hadn’t met or seen them yet and so he took a small slice of time to admire the creature he had saved. 

 

Then he stood and walked back to the small kitchen area of his one room cabin. He strained the soup so it was just broth and then poured it into a large bowl and put it to the side, right where it would be easy to access when the bird creature woke up. Daichi could wait for as long as the bird creature needed. He had to, because he was scared that if he woke him up, Daichi was afraid that he would jump and jerk away and hurt himself. 

 

Daichi stoked the fire, sending a few lovely warm pops into the air. He watched the smoke disappear up the chimney and he could perfectly picture it puffing out of the top of the chimney with bulbous, cloudlike shapes and disappearing into the air. He smiled softly at the imagery and sat himself down from his crouch, to sit cross legged on the warm floor in front of the hearth. His face was warm from the fire and he pushed a hand through his hair, relishing in the way his colder hand contrasted his forehead. He dragged both hands down his face to rest them firmly against his cheeks. He sighed happily. He must look so utterly idiotic, sitting here bathing in the warmth of the fire and pressing his hands to his cheeks like one of those furiously blushing girls that watched him practice when he took off his shirt. But no one could see him now so he did it again, dragging his hands up and down his face, as if he were scrubbing to wash his face. It felt… nice? In a way of speaking?

 

A soft whimpering sound found its way into Daichi’s ears and he turned. The bird had shifted in his sleep, eyes more squeezed shut now. His fists were clenched and he seemed to have grabbed fistfuls of the sheets. He looked terrified, eyebrows knit together in fear, jaw so tight Daichi could see the muscles moving in his cheeks as he ground his teeth together. On top of all this, the bird creature kept twitching in his sleep, as if fighting off invisible attackers. 

 

Daichi hesitated. He wanted to help the bird creature calm down so he didn’t hurt his wings and ribs further but he didn’t want to wake him up and scare him. Daichi was well aware that when one woke up from nightmares, one tended to jump and flail around. Flailing, for the bird creature, would cause the splints to shit and the bones in his wings to move and thus intense pain would erupt in his wings and it would hurt. Daichi raised his hand and it hovered over the birds head. He twitched violently again, a small whimper of pain coming up from his throat as his wings were jostled. The sound was so small and pitiful and sad and terrified that Daichi couldn’t watch this anymore. 

 

He lowered his hand down onto the bird creature’s head and started stroking his hair. Softly, from the crown of his head down towards the mattress in smooth motions. The bird creatures hair was incredibly soft, just like before, and Daichi kept carding his fingers through it, enthralled. 

 

For one terrifying moment, it wasn’t working. The poor creature kept twitching and whimpering and his fists got tighter on the blankets and his knuckles were starting to turn white. He was resisting the calming motions of Daichi’s fingers through his hair with all his strength, which shouldn’t have been much. He wasn’t waking up and Daichi was starting to panic because he didn’t know what to do and the bird creature was going to hurt himself very badly if he kept this up. Daichi could almost smell the fear and terror wafting from the bird creatures body as he kept fighting off the imaginary attackers and reacting with small jerky motions to whatever wounds they were inflicting. Daichi kept sliding his fingers through his hair, drawing slow circles into his scalp in what he hoped was a calming motion. 

 

Then his eyes snapped open at the speed of light and he went to jerk himself upward in a panic. Daichi’s hands flew to the bird creature’s shoulders and he held him down. 

 

This only seemed to terrify the poor thing even more and he started to struggle against Daichi’s hold but he held fast. Then the pain seemed to register and the bird creature stopped struggling with a despairing cry of pain. Daichi could see the tears flickering to life in his dull brown eyes that now sparkled with life and fear and sadness. He was staring up at Daichi, head tilted to the side so he could look at him properly from his position on his stomach on the bed. He looked expectant, accepting, as if he was certain that this was his end, that this hunter above him was going to kill him. 

 

“Your wings are broken.” Daichi blurted. 

 

The creature’s eyes widened, not in surprise at what Daichi had said, but to how he said it. It was more confusion than anything, right alongside the fear and acceptance. 

 

“You were fighting and then you were beaten and then you fell on them and I could hear the crunch.” Daichi shuddered lightly at this before continuing “And I splinted your wings to the best of my abilities and I brought you here, you were unconscious by the way, and I patched you up, splinting your wings again and wrapping them and then I rubbed a special bruise ointment into your wings and ribs and shoulders because they were bruised too and it’s amazing that your ribs hadn’t cracked even though you fell all that way-”

 

“You saved me.” The bird creature interrupted him, voice utterly timid and sweet like warm milk with honey in the evenings. 

 

Daichi’s mouth snapped shut. Then he nodded. 

 

The bird creature stared at him, eyes wide like an owls. 

 

Then his face broke into the sweetest smile Daichi had ever seen and his heart did a flip. 

 

“Thank you.” The bird said, still smiling at Daichi, tears slowly sliding down the side of his face “You saved me.”

 

“You’re welcome.” Daichi said, utterly enraptured and staring unapologetically “What else was I going to do, leave you there? When I’d just witnessed you lose an aerial dog fight? No way in hell.”

 

“You don’t even know me.” The bird made a sound that sounded like a breathless laugh that must have hurt a little “You don’t even know my name, let alone what I am and yet you saved me and brought me to your home and, if I remember correctly, made me soup and fed me.” The bird was still smiling incredulously “Why?”

 

“W-well. You looked like you were in bad shape. And you looked like you had been hungry for a while and you looked cold and in need of some down time.” Daichi started to smile back and it felt like his smile could never match the pure beautiful moonlight shining from the birds mouth “And, you know, I like to think of myself as a good person that helps those in need.”

 

The bird’s smile grew sleepy “What’s your name?”

 

“Sawamura Daichi.” Daichi said, ignoring the fact that he had already introduced himself. The poor thing had probably been in such shock that he couldn’t remember. Daichi added “What’s yours?”

 

“Sugawara Koushi.” The bird said, starting to nuzzle back into the mattress “Call me Suga.”

 

“Call me Daichi.” Daichi said “And one more thing before you go to sleep?”

 

The bird creature made a noncommittal humming noise “What is it?”

 

“What are you?” Daichi blurted. He felt like an idiot.

 

“I’m a Crow.” Suga mumbled, words slurring together “Now may I sleep?”

 

Before Daichi could respond, the Crow was asleep, small snuffling sounds in place of snores tumbling from his lips. 

 

Daichi hummed and carded his fingers one last time through Suga’s soft hair before standing up and picking up a book from his small bookshelf. He would stay nearby if Suga needed him for anything and, when he woke up again, Daichi could help him drink some more soup. A tiny overly hopeful part of Daichi suggested Suga might be up and about the next time he was awake. He shoved that part back into its place and continued reading. 

 

Things just didn’t work like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo what'd you think?  
> Leave a kudos if ya liked it and feel free to tell me what you think in the comments!  
> Also, you can yell at me on tumblr:  
> https://runawaybean.tumblr.com


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